spending, in an economy that needs spending, the beauty of this tax situation is as you approach it on the calendar, you could look at it and say the economy is still too fragile to raise all of these rates. let s just raise the top two, top three, something like that, you could tailor it if you had to. but if the economy reaches the strength that it had in 1993 when it was also coming out of a recession at that time, you could let those tax rates go up. and let s be clear. allan greenspan who was a big advocate of the original bush tax cuts has said, it s time to let them go. let them expire. the remarkable thing about washington when it comes to this particular issue is in 2000, we had a big surplus. we seemed to be having economic growth for the foreseeable future, so we made a policy based on that. george w. bush was very clear. we had a surplus. it was the people s money, he was going to return it to the people. we now have exactly the opposite situation.
good evening from new york. we are now in the fifth hour of chaos in the house of representatives. a vote was scheduled for 6:00 p.m. this evening. at that point, the republican house leadership put out a notice that the vote was delayed. there came a point where they simply closed the doors and started lobbying one on one to try to round up votes for john boehner s bill. john boehner s deficit reduction bill that would also increase the debt ceiling. house republican whip kevin mccarthy just sent out a message saying, quote, members are advised that there will be no votes in the house tonight. we apologize for the late notice. thank you for bearing with us. and have a good night. republican leadership is not going to have a good night. they had planned for this vote to happen, as i said, five hours ago, but when speaker boehner realized they didn t have the votes to pass that bill, the vote was delayed. that s a standard procedure in the house when you don t have the votes,
chaos in the house of representatives. a vote was scheduled for 6:00 p.m. this evening. at that point, the republican house leadership put out a notice that the vote was delayed. there came a point where they simply closed the doors and started lobbying one on one to try to round up votes for john boehner s bill. johnoehner s deficit reduction bill that would also increase the debt ceiling. house republican whip kevin mccarthy just sent out a message saying, quote, members are advised that there will be no votes in the house tonight. we apologize for the late notice. thank you for bearing with us. and have a good night. republican leadership is not going to have a good night. they had planned for this vote to happen, as i said, five hours ago, but when speaker boehner realized they didn t have the votes to pass that bill, the vote was delayed. that s a standard procedure in the house when you don t have the votes, just delay the vote. reports from capitol hill say as many as
folks in wisconsin with the signs, don t you think this is a little sick? it this is a challenge of our time. it s the challenge of our time. allan greenspan said capitalism can t survive like this. it s growing at a sickening rate. it is. on the set we ll have senator scott brown here. and also senator chuck schumer. also, we ll talk to governor scott walker. and union leader richard trumka. here s the deal. i ll be nice to trumka. you be nice to the governor. i will. i m excited. i m curious. okay. that s easy for me. i like trumka. but you have to let me ask a question or two. okay. thank you. plus, a look at the political playbook. we also have the latest on libya, which we need to get to, another big story we re covering this morning. first, here s bill with a check on the forecast. bill? good morning, mika. let s start with new jersey. trenton to philadelphia, southward to atlantic city, you ve got snow. you re doing a little bit of
forward. bill you say the president has been timid on this issue ? he doesn t off the leadership that s necessary? yes. in his state of the union message he should have told us some of the things that are happening. allan greenspan said we could have a debt crisis in 2-3 years, the moody s buy rating said in december, they could downgrade our bond rating in less than two years, the international monetary fund says our reductions have to be second only to japan. we need to cut spending more than greece, according to the international monetary fund. bill: have republicans countered with the kind of proposal and tough love that s necessary? well, yes. a lot of the proposals have been raised. bill: where? but let me ask you, first and foremost, this is the president of the united states. who i believe should have told the american people in the state of the union why we are in a crisis.